


Trained to Kill, Born to Die

by lostinparallel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gruesome Imagery, Hydra, Idk if you can tell but I'm still crying over Bucky Barnes, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt, Very little dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinparallel/pseuds/lostinparallel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling is easy. Death is easier, it’s having the courage to move forward that’s the hard part.<br/>The self destruct protocol was built into the Winter Soldier through years of programming. It would activate if the asset was to ever fall into the hands of the enemy. So, Bucky isn’t surprised when he finds himself standing on the roof of his apartment building as a frantic river of traffic gushes below him, battling the undeniable urge to jump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trained to Kill, Born to Die

**Author's Note:**

> I thought up this fic at 4:00 AM whilst listening to Hazy by Rosi Golan. You should go and listen to it too because it's beautiful and you will probably cry.

He wakes. Leather straps dig into his wrists and he feels a terrifying emptiness crawling beneath his skin. There is fire in his veins and the echo of distant explosions pierces the carefully constructed stillness of the room. A warm hand cups his cheek. He shies away from the touch, squirming and gasping and always _waiting_ for the stab of pain and buzz of electricity that follows, but it never comes.

Trembling fingers clumsily unbuckle the straps that bind him to the table. A giant clad in a leather jacket and a military issue helmet towers over him. He can hear them sniffling, feel their sharp exhales of breath as it ghosts along his skin and—for once—the moisture trailing down his cheeks isn’t blood. He flinches as the stranger snaps the second strap, having given up on prying them open with his large ungainly hands, before breaking the rest of them in quick succession.

A low voice cuts through the dazed state of his consciousness, barely above a whisper and so full of desperation that it ices his blood.

“C’mon, Bucky, You have to wake up. We have to go—”

The familiarity of the voice sends him reeling and he chokes on his words, swallowing down the blood and bile rising in his throat. Tears sting behind his eyes as his best friend’s face comes swimming into view, out of focus and larger than he remembers. His thoughts are all broken fragments at his feet, but it’s _him_ , it’s always _him_. 

“Steve...”

* * *

He wakes. A bitter chill has settled deep in his lungs and he shivers at the numbing sensation seeping through his clothes. Sprawled out, motionless on the blank canvas of ice beneath him, he sees the white of bone poking through the skin of his leg, splintered and broken and crumbling into the thick blanket of snow surrounding him.

His voice is hoarse with disuse as it passes his cracked lips, a feeble plea for help, and there’s a memory of him falling hundreds and thousands of feet, as Steve howled his name into the silence. Wrapped in his right hand is the metal railing that tore itself from the train, his fingers have frozen around the cold steel in a deathly grip.

Taking a deep breath and furiously blinking back tears, Bucky manages to tilt his head enough to glance down at the searing pain oozing from his left side. The flesh around the base of his shoulder is torn and bloody, replacing his left arm with a gruesome stump and a stream of red that drains out into the snow, staining everything it touches. 

Bare, twisted trees stretch out into the bleak sky; their roots fester in the dirt and spindly branches reach out to grope at the still air.

It’s snowing when _they_ find him. Bucky screams as they drag his mangled body through the wilderness, leaving a trail of blood across the white banks at the foot of the mountain where he fell. He looks up at the dotted grey backdrop, blinking through the snowflakes that cascade passed his eyes and settle onto his skin. Bucky watches them melt with the feverish heat emanating from his body, almost forgetting to cry out when the HYDRA men haul him over a sharp tree root that digs into his spine and has him coughing up blood.

* * *

He wakes. The mouth guard between his teeth does little to muffle the wretched screams bubbling in his throat. Electricity courses through his skull, devouring every conscious thought and replacing it with unwilling obedience and the overwhelming need to kill.

He struggles against the metal restraints that shackle him to the chair. A stream of words breaks through the haze of pain and confusion, shuddering through his head like a mantra.

_The man on the bridge, who was he?_  
_I knew him. I knew him. I knew him.  
_ _I know him._

But the desire for knowledge fades with the fire surging beneath his skin, and at last, the soldier has his target. He has his mission, and the pain stops soon after.

* * *

He wakes. The wailing of sirens and the roaring of engines fill his ears, and when Bucky opens his eyes, he is not clinging to the side of a train with the harsh bite of the cold gnawing at his flesh. Instead, he finds himself standing on the roof of his apartment building as a frantic river of traffic gushes below him.

The self-destruct protocol was built into him through years of programming; years of torture, of HYDRA cutting him open to watch him heal, and of electricity burning through his veins. The protocol would activate if the asset was to ever fall into the hands of the enemy. And as the rest of his past sleeps soundly, buried six-feet under where the rush of the 21st century cannot reach it, Bucky fights against the urge to take that final step and silence the screeching inside his head.

He’s afraid, afraid that he will survive the fall. And HYDRA will find him and take him away, make him forget—forget everything—forget Steve   
and— 

“ _Steve._ ”

There’s a comfort in the intimacy of the name as it rolls off his tongue, and Bucky feels a warmth spread through his chest, jumping across nerve-endings and slowing the panicked racing of his heart. The sensation stops at the base of his left shoulder where skin and bone have been replaced by harsh, unforgiving steel.

He’s lived through this before, on those callous nights where he would wake up to Steve tearing him from yet another nightmare, prying a bloodied knife from Bucky’s hands and whispering soft comforts into his ear. Sometimes when the chaos rattling inside his skull became too much, Steve would lull Bucky back to the real-world with memories of summer nights in Brooklyn, memories of Bucky teaching Steve how to dance in the early hours of the morning and of roller coaster rides at Coney Island that had Steve hurling into a trash can for twenty minutes after.

Bucky remembers none of it. But Steve does and that’s good enough for him.

Ugly, grey buildings with shattered windows and crumbling brickwork stretch into the dark abyss cloaking the night sky. Some of them are tall enough to pierce the thick smog that clings to the city whilst others dissolve into the blurred outline encasing New York.

This isn’t his home. Home is where his memories are and Bucky only remembers the fall. He remembers lying in a crumpled heap on the snowy banks, watching his blood seep out into an ocean of white. He remembers days of pain and anguish, until suddenly he was nothing but numb emptiness and his left arm was no longer connected to his body. He remembers every kill The Winter Soldier made, every bullet he put through someone’s skull and every drop of blood he spilt, forming a stream of red that gushes from his metal arm.

This is his reality, standing at the edge of his existence with the wind rushing through his hair and tears staining his scarred cheeks.

He doesn’t hear the soft patter of footsteps approaching until Steve is standing at the edge beside him, gazing out into empty space. Slowly, he turns his head until the rushing highway has faded and he sees nothing but his best friend. The piercing intensity of Steve’s gaze is practically blinding. Broad shoulders and a strong jaw have replaced what used to be sallow cheeks and a delicate frame, a body that was too often wracked with illness, and one that Bucky spent his entire life fighting to protect.

Steve reaches out a hand, slowly and timidly, as though he is approaching a scared animal that would startle if he moved too carelessly. The trembling hand draws nearer and suddenly _Bucky is clutching onto that metal railing with the wind howling and the bitter cold washing over him and he is falling and—_  
Steve is still stood right beside him and the hand doesn’t fall away. Steve would never let him go.

“No—” Bucky doesn’t want to be saved, he doesn’t _deserve_ to be saved, and if Steve was anything short of a good man he would recognise that. 

“Go back inside, Steve,” he chokes out. And despite the grief shining in his eyes, Steve plasters a smile to his lips, holding himself a little higher.

“No can do, Bucky. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, remember?”

Bucky isn’t sure what weakness in him reaches back to grasp Steve’s hand with his cold metal one, entwining the steel digits with Steve’s fingers until there is a warmth resonating through the weaponized part of him, as well. But when Steve’s mouth widens into a smile, it’s a good thing Bucky is standing away from the edge because the familiarity of it makes his knees weak.


End file.
